Holding Off the Dark
by Person4
Summary: Bulgaria was beautiful, which wasn't something she'd expected. Hermione/Krum


Bulgaria was beautiful, which wasn't something she'd expected. Although she'd studied the country before leaving for it, her research had focused on the history, the culture, how the wizarding world there compared to the one in England, and other things that she'd thought might help her fit in there. Geography hadn't been high on the list, and in her imagination she'd conjured up the image of a harsh, rocky, country that would breed the sort of stoicism she'd seen in all the Durmstrang students (at least on the surface; at heart Viktor was so very kind). What she hadn't expected, when she portkeyed in, was to find that his home was surrounded in gently rolling hills with grass so soft you could fall asleep in it, or the stream that curled around the edge of his property, the water so bright and clear that it begged to be drunk from on hot summer days if only she didn't know that clear didn't necessarily mean safe (and then he'd shown her the water purifying charms set onto stones set under the running water every few meters, making it so there was nothing to fear. She'd never known that water could taste so sweet). The house was in the north, close enough to fly to the Danube or the Black Sea in just a couple of hours if you were fast (and Viktor was always fast on a broom, even with her clinging to him from behind, weighing it down), and she'd found beauty in every inch of the country between them.

The country itself was a seduction, every second there making her want to stay longer, past the two weeks her parents had allowed her to come visit, thinking that it was a younger sister he didn't actually have that she was there to see (and the boys really _must_ be wearing off on her to make her lie like that but _Voldemort was back_ and she needed to live as much as she could before she wound up right at ground zero in the war), and that it would be good for her to get a chance to visit a foreign country. It didn't help that Viktor had tried to convince her more than once to transfer to Drumstrang for her last few years at school, offering his home to her during the holidays so she could be safely away from England during the new war. She was ashamed of herself for how tempting it was to take him up on the offer, or to at least try convincing her parents to go along with it and be able to blame their refusal instead of her own desires when she went back home instead. It would be a wonderful thing to know that she was safe, far from all the fighting in a place that she thought she could happily spend years exploring, except that Harry was her best friend and she knew that as long as he had to fight she had to be there too. Anyway, she might be a bookworm but she wasn't a coward, who would run away with their tails between their legs at the first sign of danger.

So instead she tried to lock this place in her heart, so deeply that even the dementors wouldn't be able to touch the memories. She sat out on the shore of the stream in the soft soft grass, a fresh sheet of parchment ready for one of the essays she needed to write over the summer and for once she dawdled on beginning her homework. In the sky above her Krum was practicing his Quidditch techniques--in his own way he had just as much focus as she did, although his was for sports and hers for learning--and she allowed herself to lean back and watch him instead. She thought that he'd noticed her watching, because he seemed to be flying with more sweeps and flourishes than usual, hardly noticeable unless you were paying him close attention. She'd never thought that a boy would ever show off for her, and just watching made everything seem more perfect.

All of it she tried to memorize. Krum's form in a spinning dive on his broomstick. The hills all around her. The rushing noise of the stream over the rocks. The scent of the cut grass, of her new parchment, of the overly large cotton shirt Krum had given her when she'd accidentally splashed juice down her front that morning, even though a cleaning spell would have been simple to do. She couldn't stay, but she would keep it all with her.

It would be a light that she could hold onto in the dark days to come. 


End file.
